The M's need a smarter management team
As the team continues to occupy the bottom of the standings, it's time to look at who's at the top — of the decision-making tree, that is.
Our Seattle Mariners begin what could be the most important three-game series in their history this weekend, entertaining the San Diego Padres, their joint tenants at their Peoria, AZ spring training complex, at Safeco Field.
Both teams entered the season with high expectations. Both, on the field, have been just plain dreadful.They have the worst win-loss records in all major-league baseball.
Attendance has been weaker at Safeco Field than at any comparable time in several years. It could fall off a cliff if the Mariners fail to win the series or, worse yet, lose all three games. The 2008 Mariners, at B-grade level on paper, have been playing at D-minus level on the field. Their player payroll, for several years running, has been among the highest in baseball and their on-field record the weakest. That is what you call cost-ineffectiveness. In real-world business, it gets management fired.
Baseball is not a sport run by geniuses. Some 40 years ago a friend of mine bought a major-league franchise. Knowing I was a baseball nut, he offered me a job roughly equivalent to Chuck Armstrong's present job in Mariners management. As it turned out, I did something else. But I never forgot what my friend told me when we discussed the matter. "We would be the smartest management team around," I told him. "Oh no," he said, "there are many management teams much smarter than we would be. But none in baseball."
Except for the 1995 miracle season, and a couple other strong seasons during Lou Piniella's field managership, the Mariners have validated my friend's observation. They have presented their product attractively, providing a nice family experience at Safeco Field. Their promotion and advertising stresses the "niceness" of the players and their readiness "to give back to the community" with appearances at charity events and schools. Niceness — at least surface niceness — counts in Seattle. But ticket, parking, and concession prices are high. And the Mariners' core product, the team on the field, has earned the scorn of fans who really know baseball.
Famous tough-guy manager Leo Durocher once observed that "nice guys finish last." And, when it comes to our local team, he may have a point.
After Piniella bailed out in frustration at management's unwillingness to provide the one or two additional players who would make the team a true pennant contender, the hiring pattern has been clear. Bob Melvin, Mike Hargrove and John McLaren, Piniella's on-field successors, have for the most part been bland, in-the-background company men unlikely to complain if not provided with talent they thought sufficient. Not boat rockers.
General manager Bill Bavasi has great bloodlines. His father, recently deceased, was a legend in the Brooklyn Dodgers (and then, San Diego Padres) front office. But Bavasi himself has continued the long Mariners tradition of holding too long onto aging veterans; trading or releasing valuable players in favor of duds; bestowing huge long-term contracts on mediocre performers; and not in general being able to judge talent at major-league level. His strongest suit has been the rebuilding of what had become a weak farm system — the assembly line of younger players moving upward to the majors.
The current roster, on paper, should be successful, especially in light of the expensive additions over the winter of pitchers Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva. But it plays without energy or intelligence. Their body language tells you, when they take the field, that they expect to lose. Until last week, they had failed to win any game in which they had trailed by as many as two runs. There are impolite words to describe teams that never come from behind. They would be unappreciated in nice Seattle.
Bavasi last winter traded outfielder Adam Jones, who could be a star, and outstanding relief pitcher George Sherrill, along with three promising young pitchers, to the Baltimore Orioles for Bedard. Bedard has been a quality starter for the Mariners but, earlier this week, he collapsed completely against the Texas Rangers after being given a 5-0 lead. Watching him, it was easy to observe that his heart and mind were not in the game. There is no certainty that Bedard will sign a long-term contract with the Mariners. He could be a quickie rent-a-player hire and gone — with the Orioles, meantime, reaping benefits from Jones et. al. for many years.
Bavasi paid highly for outfielder Brad Wilkerson, as a replacement for Jose Guillen in right field, after refusing to meet Guillen's relatively modest contract demands. Guillen was one of the few Mariners who last year played with fire and intensity. Wilkerson already is gone, and the Mariners are eating most of his $3 million contract. He signed utilityman Greg Norton to a more modest contract and, then, after he performed well, unaccountably dumped him to Atlanta. Bavasi also has bestowed unaccountably big multi-year contracts on first baseman Richie Sexson and designated hitter Jose Vidro. Both no doubt will be put on waivers at mid-season, in the hope that some other team will pick them up. If they have any takers, the Mariners no doubt will have to pickup most of their contracts in order to dump them off. At 32, catcher Kenji Johjima is on a down-curve. He has three good young catchers — Jeff Clement, Rob Johnson, and Adam Moore — waiting for playing time behind him. But, a few days ago, the Mariners extended his contract for three more years, at $8 million per year.
